On Thursday, July 15th, Friends of Woodfords Corner, (FWC), the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, (BCM) and the City of Portland teamed up to install a variety of temporary and demonstration infrastructure with the hopes of slowing traffic through Deering Ave, one of the main streets in Woodfords Corner.

In April, we measured vehicle speeds at the Woodfords Street end of Deering Avenue and witnessed first hand the high numbers of vehicles traveling above the speed limit. In addition, we saw a number of cars turning onto Revere Street against traffic rules. Deering Ave and Revere Streets are homes to many local businesses and foot and bike traffic are critical to their success. We're hoping that slowing the traffic will make travel through the Corner safer for all users.

Our installation involved 3 parts:

1. Narrowing the width of the mouth of Deering Ave:

Too many cars accelerate as they enter Deering Ave, in fear of hitting a red light. With the new infrastructure, they have to "thread a needle", which can only be done at a much slower and legal speed.

2. Adding a curb extension at the intersection of Deering Ave and Revere Street (west):

This treatment improves pedestrian safety in 2 ways by maintaining the slower speed that the first installation started and reducing the crossing distance for pedestrians crossing Deering Ave.

3. Increasing the size of the traffic island at Deering and Revere Street

This will hopefully prevent illegal turns up Revere (west), slow turning traffic onto Revere (east) and increase crosswalk conspicuity.

Our installation team, consisting of 3 BCM staff and 5 FWC volunteers, noticed a major decrease in speed almost immediately. Our team will be checking the installation daily to watch the behavior of motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists and will be surveying users of the road to hear their feedback about the temporary infrastructure.

The infrastructure is temporary and will be removed by November 15th or earlier.

Read about the background of the project HERE.

Please share some thoughts about the project by going to our survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PortlandWC2021

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